I don't use templates, personally. Someone did knock one up, but I prefer to go it from scratch.

What you do is this:

Use "unGTP.exe" - available at www.RoF-tools.de to uncompress the GTP archives that Neoqb have bundled up game assets in to. Do this by downloading and unpacking unGTP, and placing it in your Rise of Flight directory. Drag the GTP file you want to extract onto unGTP.exe, it'll unpack it into a directory named (null). I forget which GTP file most of the aircraft skins are in - just unpack 'em all then look for the /null/data/graphics/skins/ folder. You can delete all the others.

Aircraft skins are in a folder named after the aircraft. They're stored in .dds format, which is a compressed texture format often used by games. You'll need the DDS tool from nVidia for Photoshop (or a similar tool for Paint Shop Pro) to be able to load and create them.

Load one of the basic DDS files into Photoshop, you get a 2048x4095 pixel image. The first 2048x2048 pixels are the main skin - what's seen up close. The next bit is 1024x1024, which is seen slightly when you're a little further away, then it's 512x512, 256x256 etc etc. Each of these different areas of the image are loaded as the camera moves away from the aircraft (saves on resources).

What needs to be understood is that this skin is a 2D image of a 3D object. So, it's like a peeled orange skin - it makes a 3D form when folded back up together. All the parts of the plane are there... just not where you'd maybe expect to find them. The wheels could be placed next to the tail, for example. The game itself knows where everything is, and will piece it all back together properly.

You can now edit this skin as you wish. The best way to do this, if you want to change the colour of the aircraft, for example (rather than just add icons/logos/text over the top of the current skin) - is to do the following:

Promote the locked background image to a new layer. Call it "Base" or something similar.

On the base layer, use the selection tools to only select an area you want to change the colour of. For example, the top/left/right sides of the fuselage. Get the selection to be a nice, snug fit around the aircraft body.

Then, with this selection still active, create a new layer. Call this one "Fuselage" (or whatever part of the plane you've got selected). Now, fill the selected area with pure white.

Go to the blending options for the new layer, and make pure white invisible by adjusting the blending slider. You can now use the "Colour Overlay" options to quickly and easily experiment with a fill mode and colour hue that will adjust the underlying base layer to the new colour you want. I find for light areas, using: DARKEN with about 60% opacity on the colour fill works well. For dark areas, LIGHTEN with about 30% works well.

This is MUCH harder if there is a lot of detail underneath the colour overlay. Ideally you want the base skin to be as simple and plain as possible. Most of the aircraft have at least one skin that's not got much on it.

It's important to leave some of the detail on the original skin showing through, otherwise you end up with a plastic-looking skin. By simply lightening or darkening the current skin with a new colour, you get a pretty good effect.

I'm trying to find a free video capture program that will work with photoshop so I can do a quick tutorial. Looks like FRAPS struggles to record Photoshop tho.


Hope this helps him, tho he'll need some prior understanding of photoshop or it'll make no sense at all.


M.

Masaq.
I'm glad you took the time to explain all that. I do it a little different but get same results.
The file you need to extract is in you ROF data folder and it's called graphics2.GTP
Here's a few samples of what they look like laid out in your paint program.
I'm showing the lastest Phalz I did. This plane did not take me long because I had already by this time knew where all the parts are. Took the stock one image one and all I did here was draw out or highlight what I wanted painted yellow and use a simple bucket fill overlay so as not cover up the original detail. Getting the color right took some time in and out of game but you can get an idea how it works. A matter of eraseing the numbers and or changing them. Image two.
This plane was for me pretty simple and took me about an hour.
Hope this helps some of you who want to try it.

Well, here's how I do it

Watch at Youtube (for full screen) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OmIn1Y49qQ to actually make out what's going on.

Another Pfalz DIII. This Time I did a historical one of
Ltn. Busso von Alvensleben Rocourt. June 1918
Download. http://www.mediafire.com/?kvigv2nmul3
Updated more weathered.

Very nice MM!

Jason

indeed very nice skins, Musicman!

Thanks guys. You're very welcome. I've noticed I spelled Pfalz wrong here and there by spelling it Phalz. Sorry for the miss spell.

nice skins Musicman....just a suggestion...I would make the whites a bit darker, maybe a bit dirty....thats all

I did do that some on it. You're right I agree, it does look too new.

I love the dirty yellow one above, most realistic. Wear out the paint some too, like rubbing it with sandpaper.

Thanks for all your hard work and letting us enjoy them too.

Cheers.